


and i'll care for you, oh, careful you.

by blueparacosm



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Blood!, M/M, Underage Drinking, nice, otherwise fluff, some mild crying!, vomiting!, whatever amirite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6752410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueparacosm/pseuds/blueparacosm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Careful.</p><p>Tiptoeing through broken glass, ducking her swinging fists and alcohol-falls.</p><p>Careful.</p><p>Speaking under whispers, watching the floor and keeping his head down.</p><p>Careful.</p><p>They have always been careful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i'll care for you, oh, careful you.

**Author's Note:**

> here come dat boi!!
> 
>  
> 
> p.s. title from careful you by tv on the radio great song worked way too well with this fic AFTER I WROTE IT??? incredible coincidence anyways you may now commence the read

Careful.

Tiptoeing through broken glass, ducking her swinging fists and alcohol-falls.

Careful.

Speaking under whispers, watching the floor and keeping his head down.

Careful.

They have always been careful.

***

“Careful there, Blake.” 

A milky skinned arm juts out, keeping the darker man steady. Bellamy grips his tin cup tighter as he regains his balance with the helping hand. “Ah, th-thanks, Murph.”

“Murph? That’s... new.” Bellamy’s beaming face, previously glowing from the sweat and the buzz of the alcohol, falls. “Sorry.”

“No, no. I kind of like it.” Murphy offers a reassuring smile, which looks more pained than comforting. Bellamy glances around him, seeing all of his friends have wandered off, a substantial distance from Murphy- who is sitting alone, having hardly made a dent in his personal alcohol supply.

“You’re not drinking? It’s a p-party.” Bellamy’s tongue swirls awkwardly in his mouth as he tries to form the words. Murphy’s shoulders jump with a small snort of laughter. “I’m not exactly anxious to make a fool of myself tonight,” he says. “Maybe another time.”

Bellamy’s eyelids droop slightly, as he watches the firelight cast dancing shadows over the sharp edges of Murphy’s face. His cheeks look soft, he thinks.

The older man, after staring for some time, impulsively sits next to him on the log, which creaks under his weight. 

“You’re kinda cute, Murphy.”

Murphy’s intense focus on the fire breaks, his eyes lighting up with something playful and bright as he glances up.”So I’ve heard.”

Bellamy snorts and shoves his shoulder. “Yeah, right.” Murphy furrows his eyebrows, indignant. “Excuse you?” he says, a lilt to his voice.

“I’m sure you could just have the pick of the litter, am I right? Any girl here-”

“Or guy.”

“I was getting there.”

Murphy chuckles, raising an eyebrow in question. He knew?

Raven, obviously drunk, appears at that moment to chuckle a stinking cloud of alcohol breath into Murphy’s face. “We all knew, pal.” Murphy visibly blushes from head to toe.

She throws a, “You could do better, Blake,” over her shoulder as she leaves, and Murphy supposes she’s right.

“She’s right.”

“I don’t think you’re s-so bad.”

“That’s just Monty’s moonshine talking.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes, dropping his head lazily on Murphy’s shoulder. Murphy shudders at the contact, but tries his best to hold still.

“Mmm...” he hums. The bobbing curls resting on his shoulder gleam orange and white in the light of the moon and the fire. 

“... Yeah, you have- uh-” He picks up his head to steal a glance. Murphy smirks, thought he isn’t feeling very confident, and tries not to look too afraid of the words tumbling so freely and raw from Bellamy’s lips.

“You’re- you can be kind. S-sometimes. You’re funny, too. Yeah, very funny. Smart, strong. Yeah, you’d be a good, uh, you’d be a good soldier.” He coughs, clears his throat. 

Murphy opens his mouth to speak, but his throat feels sticky and dry. So he says nothing. He smiles.

He smiles, and it all gets worse. So much worse.

Bellamy runs the tips of his fingers clumsily down the right side of Murphy’s face, then pushes them back up into his hair, carding through it.

Murphy’s eyes flutter for a moment at the contact, and Bellamy notices. The man leans in, Murphy presumes to close the space between them. The signs are all there, right? 

Murphy knows it’s wrong. He’s not Bellamy right now. The man before him isn’t the man he knows. The man before him isn’t the man who would never speak to him, never lavish his golden affections over Murphy so generously, never even look him in the eye.

It isn’t the man he should want to kiss.

But he does.

So Murphy shuts his eyes tight, pretends the person on the other side of his eyelids loves him, he closes his parted lips, pretends the words threatening to spill out of them are ones of kindness, gratitude, and he leans in, he follows all of the rules- 

A warmth. Heaving breaths. Right time, wrong kind.

Vomit sliding down the left leg of his trousers does nothing for the already nauseating atmosphere, and neither does Bellamy, as his violent retching continues.

“Typical,” he thinks. Classic. Hope is fleeting. If God was looking at him right now, if He even cared anymore, He was laughing. He was pointing an everlasting finger in Murphy’s face and saying, “Stupid boy.”

Stupid, stupid boy.

A crowd has formed, familiar, booming laughter echoing in Murphy’s ears. He’s sure he’s turned every shade of red known to man by the time he works up the nerve to meet their eyes. “All of you can go to hell.” He sneers, and a few them put up their hands or shoot him dirty looks, but he turns back to the boy next to him before he sees anyone actually walk away.

“Hey, uh-” He places a gentle, tremoring hand awkwardly on Bellamy’s broad back. “You okay?”

The man wipes bile from his lips on the back of his hand, nodding slowly. “M’good. J-just g-” He stands too quickly and Murphy sees him falling before he can command his limbs to respond. He crashes to the ground, the younger man scrambling to help him before he’s even realized he’s down. He’s hit his head on something sharp.

“Sorry to ruin the night, boss, but I think it’s time for you to-” Murphy’s sentences trails off as the hand not gripping Bellamy’s shoulder becomes painted by drops of red. “Shit.”

Bellamy squints, scrunching up his face as his dizziness holds him to the earth. “Murphy, I’m fine. D-definitely fine.”

Murphy slides his hands under Bellamy’s armpits, even as the larger man fights against him, limbs drowsy and disobedient.“No- Bellamy, let me help you.”

“Get off’a me,” Bellamy slurs, pushing the pale outstretched hands away from him as blackness creeps into the edges of his vision. He feels himself falling away as something warm and sticky rolls down the bridge of his nose, and the last thing he sees is the other boy’s pale face, features contorted by worry and panic. He makes a mental note to remember that image, as unfocused and vignette a picture it is.

***

When he wakes, it’s to gentle hands and a low voice. “Careful...” The voice mumbles, perhaps to itself, and Bellamy vaguely registers that the low, croaky voice belongs to John Murphy. 

He’s in a glowing room, no- it’s a tent. It’s his tent and someone- Murphy- Murphy lit a lantern. Murphy’s touching his face, something between his fingers. A cloth. Murphy runs the cloth along the bridge of his nose with such gentleness and caution Bellamy’s sure he’s not doing anything more than smudging the blood across his skin. He wants to tell him to push a little, to not be so careful. His throat feels tight with emotion. 

“Hey, you feeling okay?”

The world spins. The alcohol buzz has worn off, but it becomes apparent that there’s enough left in his system to make him weary and wet-eyed.

He sits up and turns his head to hide the tears welling up, threatening to fall. He can’t do this, not now. Not in front of him. 

“Bellamy? Hey, man... no... don’t-”

“Thank you.” Bellamy whispers, voice groggy and wet, pressing his palms to his watery eyes. Murphy is quiet for a moment, maybe too long a moment. The darker-haired man steals a glance from between his fingers. He locks eyes with him, and he looks angry.

“Don’t thank me.”

“I did.”

“Well, don’t.” Murphy bites back, jerking Bellamy’s closer to him by the shirt, a bit too roughly. He begins to dab at Bellamy’s forehead wound again, albeit less gingerly this time.

The tears roll freely and shamelessly down Bellamy’s cheeks as he stares at the boy sitting cross-legged in front of him. Murphy’s eyebrows are furrowed in concentration as he dips the cloth in the tiny water basin and returns his hand to Bellamy’s forehead. His hands shake, and some otherworldly force guides Bellamy hands to Murphy’s wrist. He pulls them down and clutches the shaking ones in his own. “I said thank you.”

The boy heaves a wet, shaky breath. “And I said don’t.” He begins worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, the skin becoming red and irritated. He returns to cleaning the wound after a moment of hesitation and held breath.

Bellamy feels something stirring deep in his stomach. Anger, maybe. Frustration. Moonshine. Butterflies.

“Thank you. Thank you for taking care of me. Thank you for looking out for me. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for forgiving me.”

Murphy rips his hands away in disgust, curling in on himself.

“Thank you for hanging you? Thank you for giving away all our information? Thank you for getting Finn and all those grounders killed?”

Bellamy searches his sky blue eyes, growing furious. “That wasn’t your fault.”

Murphy shakes his head, matted locks falling in his eyes. Bellamy reaches out to tuck them behind his ears, inhibitions lowered, his usual cautiousness buried beneath emotion and liquid poison. Murphy jerks back, closing his eyes and turning his head away. “Just, stop,” he says, placing a hand delicately on Bellamy’s chest and pushing him back down onto the furs.

He closes his eyes and pretends the person on the other side of his eyelids loves him. He lets the feeling of Murphy’s nimble hands holding back his curls and running cold water over his wounds lead him into a sense of peace.

Peace, comfort, safety.

If he had told Bellamy of two months ago that he would be associating Murphy with those things, he would have laughed in his own face.

But here he was, feeling like this little tent was the only place he had ever truly been safe, with the boy who wanted to make sure he was feeling okay, the boy who didn’t want to be thanked for it.

The boy who he shouldn’t be so intrigued by, invested in, chasing in his dreams. The boy who everyone and his dead mother told him to stay away from. The boy who pushed the earth off it’s axis with a heavy heart and a smile so bright that the stars turned away.

Bellamy was a follower, not a leader, and he would follow him to the ends of the earth, if that’s where Murphy wanted to go.

“Stay.”

Bellamy’s eyes crack open abruptly with Murphy crouching in the doorway, basin and bloody cloth in his arms.

“What?”

“Stay.” Bellamy pats the bed next to him. Murphy’s eyes follow the movement, latching onto the furs and blankets and the strong hand hovering over them.

He hesitates, but then closes the tent flaps behind him, leaving the basin and cloth beside the entrance. He kicks his boots off carelessly, shoving them aside. He lowers himself down into the thick bedding, flat on his back, arms by his sides as if they were bound and breathing heavily.

“Why?”

Bellamy doesn’t know why. He doesn’t answer, either. They both lie stiff like planks, trying not to touch each other. Careful.

“Goodnight, Murphy.”

...

“Goodnight, Bellamy.”

Murphy’s smile is the last Bellamy sees, before dreams cloud his weary mind.

Dreams. Bright, soft, patient.

That’s new.

***

He wakes up well-rested for the first time in months, albeit feeling like his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth, feeling like his eyes are being held against fluorescent lights, feeling like he’s undergoing brain surgery without anesthetics, feeling like he has too many limbs.

Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, Murphy.

Their legs are all tangled, like a big human spider, Bellamy thinks. He turns his head, and immediately catches a whiff of Murphy’s morning breath. He looks so young in his sleep. So kind and peaceful. His hair, though, is in disarray, his clothes rumpled and wrinkled and his limbs splayed out chaotically.

Everything he looks, Bellamy thinks, he is.

The little devil perched on Bellamy’s shoulder tell him to make the most of this moment, having Murphy in front of him at his most vulnerable and beautiful. The angel says he should just get up and start his day, pretend this never happened, walk out of his tent without shame while he still can.

Bellamy has never much listened to that guy.

He dares himself to scoot a bit closer, to feel Murphy’s warm breath on his neck, to feel the soft skin of his arms pressed against his own, to close his fingers around the hand clutching his wrist.

He settles for finally getting that stupid lock of hair out of his face, (but is sure to run the tips of his fingers along his cheekbone, around the outside of his ear, along his jawline. A single tap on his chin. A thumb over his bottom lip-)

“G’morning to you too.”

Bellamy stares.

Murphy’s eyes do that thing. That thing he hates.

Bright.

Murphy laughs. 

Soft.

Bellamy laughs, too. Murphy closes his eyes again, cheeks pink. His hand falls free from Bellamy’s wrist. Bellamy grabs it. Runs a thumb over the green veins decorating creamy skin like little branches of pine.

Murphy squeezes once, Bellamy squeezes twice.

Patient.

Someone goes in for that stupid kiss. God knows who, if He even cares. 

Bellamy tastes like night-old vomit and Murphy, morning breath, rotten and stale.

Home.

The quiet of dawn falls, the laughter of the two boys rolling over the place in glimmering waves.

Not-so-careful.

They have never been careful.

 

 

(fin.)

**Author's Note:**

> oh shit waddup
> 
>  
> 
> hey love u reader. this fic is TRASH hope u liked it


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